UN report proposes moratorium on killer robots

UNITED NATIONS – A draft United Nations report says that killer robots that can attack targets without any human input "should not have the power of life and death over human beings."

It deals with legal and philosophical issues of giving robots lethal powers over humans, echoing the "Terminator" movies and countless other science fiction novels and films.

The report for the U.N. Human Rights Commission calls for a worldwide moratorium on testing, production, assembly, transfer, acquisition, deployment and use of killer robots.

Report author Christof Heyns, a U.N. human rights lawyer, calls them "Lethal autonomous robotics" and says: "Decisions over life and death in armed conflict may require compassion and intuition. Humans - while they are fallible - at least might possess these qualities, whereas robots definitely do not."